Piggybacking onto comments by Ted Barlow about my alternative-universe friend Instapundit...
Instapundit feels that the anti-gay slurs spewed at the NRA convention are just no big deal. (See here for the story). Proving, once again, that Those on the Right just don't get it when it comes to bigotry, racism, and homophobia.
So often I've found myself in conversations with conservative folk about racism. At first I think they are just in utter denial about its still significant presence in this country, saying things like "I've never really witnessed racism." (wuuh?) Inevitably, I come to realize that what they mean by "Racism" is, say, a public lynching. Things that don't rise to that level are just somehow unimportant, and anyone who cares about bigoted speech is just too sensitive.
If such comments were made in isolation, they could be easily laughed off. But, being brought up repeatedly in a forum completely unrelated to such issues, combined with the fact that it was in a room filled with people toting guns, well.... here's what should have happened (A little re-run from earlier by Eschaton friend B.N.):
Imagine--if Tom Boyer of the Pink Pistols, the gay observer quoted in the PlanetOut article, had made his way to that panel discussion and stood right up during the question-and-answer session (assuming there was the customary question-and-answer session as there usually is at these shindigs) and said right out to the panel:
"I'm gay.
I'm armed in self-defense against homophobic lowlifes like you.
And I'm part of a whole organization of queers armed likewise.
What do you say to that?"
Of course, he probably would have been gunned down on the spot. But at least it would have been a hell of a news story, even if Norquist, Fitzpatrick-Conway, Debbie Schlussel et al got off scot-free at the ensuing trial--to the benign neglect of Andrew Sullivan and the stormy applause of their fellow media whores nationwide.
